Columbia, S.C. —
The leading Republican presidential candidates spent Labor Day declaring their fealty to limited government as they sought to demonstrate credibility with a Tea Party movement that has seized the political energy of their party.

…snip…

Grim economic news has framed the Republican presidential campaign as a referendum on Obama’s fiscal leadership and a contest about which of the Republican rivals is best positioned to turn the country’s fortunes around.

But the president’s would-be replacements are also preparing for months of political combat among themselves as they seek the Republican nomination. At a wonkish policy forum Monday, five of the Republican candidates offered a preview of the intraparty fight for support from evangelical and Tea Party voters.

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota accused Obama of “stealing from generations unborn” by vastly increasing government spending. She pledged to repeal “Obamacare,” end the appointment of powerful government “czars” to oversee policy areas like immigration and the environment, and to eliminate or at least shrink the Department of Education.

“My guiding principle will be that the government works best when it acts within the limits of the Constitution,” she said at the Palmetto Freedom Forum, hosted by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and a leading Tea Party figure.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, said Americans “simply have to rein back government to be what it was considered by the founders” and criticized Obama’s three years in office.

Herman Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather Pizza, argued for a radically revamped tax code. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, focused on the theme of American exceptionalism and the limits of government.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas stuck to the themes that have long defined him: an abhorrence of money printing, making war, corporate subsidies and the role of government beyond the courts and defense.

But the broad focus of the Republican candidates on Monday was clear: to align themselves with the Tea Party.

At a breakfast earlier Monday in New Hampshire, Romney declared that he “couldn’t agree more” with the Tea Party’s demands for smaller government.

…snip…

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas skipped DeMint’s forum to head home to deal with wildfires burning across his state.

Texas wildfires have reportedly destroyed 25,000 acres in Bastrop County and 476 homes — more houses than any single wildfire in Texas and more than all other fires this year combined, according to the Texas Forest Service.

Gov. Rick Perry left the campaign trail Monday in South Carolina to organize requests for more federal aid, with more than 60 new wildfires raging across the state, the Houston Chronicle reports.

He said officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were expected to arrive in Texas as soon as Wednesday […]

19 responses to “Drowning Government in a Teacup”

So when do we have a prayer-thon for putting out the fires? It’d be more appropriate with all the hot air generated….
Thank God I don’t drink tea hot, or you’d have put me off my favourite beverage for LIFE! (I prefer iced tea in a sports bottle. PLEASE don’t ever use THAT image with BBB, PLEASE!!!)

i’m afraid i’ve already done that, john. however, i only used the sour grapes flavor. i love iced tea. it’s what i order in restaurants and what i drink all day. neither one of us would ever touch the sour grapes flavor, so i think everything is copasetic. 😉

oh now Perry wants Federal Aid…wouldn’t that be a handout from Big Gov? good thing for the residents he’s not just fiddling (praying) while Texas burns, even if it was just a dodge to get out of the “forum”

i didn’t want to make light of the disaster in texas, but the hypocrisy must be pointed out.

thanks for that link. this line made me crack up:

Note that the mainstream media have lately been hailing McConnell as “the adult in the room,” presumably because he is less visibly unstable than the Tea Party freshmen.

talk about faint praise! 😆

i had to replace maid in manhattan with something, so i thought frayed in tan satin would work, because it rhymes and because bbb is definitely frayed, and she probably wears tan satin sometimes. hey, all the puns can’t be gems. 😉

Saw some of the consevo-inqusition on the tube. Sort of like a Reagan Idol contest. Just need a judging panel of the most horrible people available. All excited about tonights dog & pony show on MSNBC. Who will win the gaffe of the night? How long will it take for Parry to step on his dick??……….New word, seen at grocer tonight: RAISONEL fruity raisins (insert joke here)

i like the idea of reagan idol with judges. they’d need someone as imbecilic as paula. i think gretchen carlson fits the bill. then they need the mean one. how about bill0? nobody ever listens to randy, so they can just put a blow-up doll in the third chair.

I hate these debates. Candidates stand there and lie about their records and what they’ve done. Ignorant people believe them. Hardly any of their supporters spend time afterwards reading about how fabricated the claims were. Most voters want this one huge helping of BS cuz it’s too much trouble or too painful to find out later that Perry and the rest are big fat liars. I know it happens among Democrats as well. It’s distressing as hell that a ton of people will have heard these buffoons, swallowed the crap and that’s all the info they’ll take in from here on till the election.

i wish they would have fact-checkers on the job as the debate is going on. they should break in the middle, and after the break, they should be confronted with any lies or exaggerations they tried to get away with.

Great teacup nonnie. Thanks for the attribution 😉 Michele Bachmann and the teabaggers are just too easy to ridicule. Right from the beginning, when they called themselves teabaggers without knowing the reference in modern parlance, to today when we all can honestly say: That’s one big cup of crazy.

it’s about time you got here, maggiejean! you know that your name on a dvd cover makes you an official raisinette, don’t you? 😉

i think it’s absolutely hilarious that they named themselves teabaggers without checking to see if it had any bad connotations and that they’re whining about being called what they named themselves now. 😆